All Need Supplied: A Prayer by John MacDuff
O God, my Heavenly Father, who has permitted me to see the light and to enjoy the comforts of a new day, I bless You for the liberty of access into Your presence. Rend Your heavens and come down; fill my heart with Your love, as I draw near to the footstool of Your Throne. I thank You for Your gracious assurance that these Gates of Prayer lead to an abounding treasury of spiritual blessing, out of which all my need shall be supplied. In Jesus, my adorable Redeemer, infinite fullness dwells; and out of His fullness—the riches of Your glory in Him—You are willing to impart even grace for grace.
You have supplied all my need in the past. You have been a loving, a bountiful, and a wise Provider; satisfying me with the blessings of Your goodness, and giving help from trouble, when vain was the help of man. I look to You for guidance and direction in the future. That future is veiled and hidden—but it is in Your better keeping. I would say, in simple confiding faith, “Undertake for me.” Hitherto have You been true to Your unfailing promise “As your day is, so shall your strength be;” and over every coming need and exigency I may well write “Jehovah Jireh,” “The Lord will provide.”
Supply that need this day. If called to do battle with evil, let me go forth in Your might, panoplied for the conflict. Strengthen me with Your good Spirit—fortify me against every temptation. In the extremity of my own weakness, may I lean on Your Almighty arm—hold me up, and I shall be safe. Preserve me from the world’s insinuating, seductive power, and from the treachery and deceitfulness of my own evil heart. Order my steps in Your word, and let no iniquity have dominion over me.
In the discharge of duty, may it be my effort and endeavor to subordinate the secular to the sacred. Keep me ever roused from the low dream of earth, to see, as in the patriarch’s dream, the ladder of God. May Your providences be as angels traveling up and down that ladder, and beckoning me “nearer to You.” Keep me from whatever would be detrimental to my spiritual interests—from all avarice and selfishness; from all malice and uncharitableness; from all indolence and sloth; from putting off until tomorrow what can be best done, and may only be done, today.
If You have given me of this world’s goods, may I seek to be a generous distributor of Your bounties. If silver and gold I have none, may I give You the consecration of the heart, and the answer of the life; knowing that You accept, according to that a man has, not according to what he has not. Forbid that my talent, be what it may, should be hid in the earth. May I ever listen to the prompting “How much do you owe your Lord?” and with a quickened sense of my responsibilities to You the Great Creditor, may I be diligent, that I may be found of You in peace, without spot, and blameless.
Supply the need of those whom I love. Wherever my friends are, O ever-present God, protect and defend them by Your mighty power. If You send them prosperity, keep them from being intoxicated with it—if You send adversity, keep them from being unduly depressed by it. Enrich them with the blessings of Your covenant grace. May we all be bound up together, on the great reaping-day of Judgment, in the same ‘bundle of life’.
Supply the need of those who are in sorrow. When human cisterns are emptied and human props removed, may they know You as the Portion that cannot be taken from them. May they honor You by being silent in the midst of perplexing dealings—recognizing these as the ministers of Your will, sent on a mission of wisdom and mercy, and that while they are only planning for time, You are planning for Eternity. May they trust Your sure word of promise, that though now they may see through a glass darkly—when death shall have rent with his wing the obstructing cloud, in Your light they shall see light. May the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, direct their hearts into the love of God, and into the patient waiting for Christ.
Bless the nations of the earth. Hasten the day when the nameless wrongs of a now groaning and travailing creation shall be redressed; when all heathen shrines shall be demolished; when will-worship and superstition shall cease. Turn the world’s sighings into songs of gladness. Cause its sinful unbelief, the lust and tyranny of passion, the twin curse of slavery and war, to yield to the benignant scepter of the Prince of Peace. Increase the ministry of holy lives, and loving deeds. Purify Your churches more and more. Stimulate them to greater energy in Your service. As witnesses for You may they seek with augmented and ever increasing fidelity to show forth the Word of life—and may Your faithful ministers enjoy at last the blessed testimony, that they have not run in vain, neither labored in vain.
Listen to these my humble prayers, and when You hear forgive and grant me an answer in peace for the Redeemer’s sake. Amen.
